What I liked best about this book was its tone, and message. A lot of books aimed at younger boys tend to try to use anger as a connecting point - the main character is mad at how things have turned out, and has to learn to control his anger throughout the book. Or they'll focus on how awkward and pimply the boys feel. This book tried a different approach - connecting through sadness.

The main character suffers through all sorts of terrible things that happen to him. It becomes an internal struggle between Lewis and his personal demons, so to say. And the moral of the story isn't that if you hit something enough, you'll win. There is no fight at the end. Lewis saves the day because he finds a way to not necessarily overcome sadness, but by remembering that for every sad memory he has, there are even more happy ones.

It was just a wonderful message, and it was worked into the story very nicely.

I liked the half magic, half science fiction approach the book takes. The imagery is vivid, and interesting.